THE BIG DASH: Unleashed!

It’s our second week camping in Darwin and we’re starting to get the hang of it.

There has been a couple of chinks in the unrelenting heat courtesy of a morning breeze that makes the start of the day a tad more pleasant.

The best plan up here is to start early, pause early and then emerge again late in the day as the sun loses its bite.

Barry says that we’re getting it easy compared to the wet season build-up later in the year. Then you survive by shuttling from air-conditioned home to air-conditioned car to air-conditioned office/shop/venue and back again.

That’s pretty much what we’re doing now!

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THE BIG DASH: Sorting the tow tug

THE BIG DASH: Hitting the scales

THE BIG DASH: On the road, finally!

THE BIG DASH: Onwards and upwards

'Tas' has been unleashed this week. No caravan, not much load and tyre pressures reset to reflect that. It revelled in the three-hour trip out to Kakadu and was just as happy on the return.

It was an odd and enjoyable feeling to roll up to the back of slower traffic, hit the indicator and surge on by. For the last month or more we’ve been the slower traffic!

Tas tackled some dirt roads without issue, conquered a couple of water fordings and generally behaved like it was right at home in this environment.

At one stage Jane took over the driving on the way back as I had a doze. I woke to find her steaming along the Arnhem Highway at 130km/h. Hey, it’s the legal speed limit up here.

The lightly laden behaviour of the Tasman does suggest there’s a decent 4x4 SUV in there trying to get out. It’s got the cabin quality and driving refinement that would form its basis.

Otherwise, it’s been about cruising the Darwin 'burbs and the X-Pro has done that job without drama as well.

It’s too big for tight car parks – you can say the same about all these dual-cab utes – which means you have to be careful, and those sensors and cameras come in for some use.

So let’s check out this week’s numbers. And there’s no doubt how much the Tasman enjoyed being unfettered. The credit card appreciated it too! Darwin fuel prices pegged below $2.50 and as low as $2.35 helped as well.

Litres consumed: 150.38
KM travelled: 1454km
Consumption average: 9.669L/100km
$ paid: $361.77
KM per $: 4.019km (Improved dramatically from 1.9km per $ last time out)

Things we enjoyed this week:

Kakadu National Park: It’s a fair old haul from Darwin, so we actually stayed at a place called Cooinda overnight so we could check the place out over two days.

I’m glad we did because there’s a huge area to cover with far flung attractions. Stand outs included rock art at Ubirr and Burrungkuy (Nourlangie) and the dawn cruise at Yellow Water (another reason to stay at Cooinda because it’s right next door) lagoon, with its inevitable croc sightings (see above), as well as myriad birds, flora and fauna.

Over the two days we climbed to a series of viewing points to take in the breathtaking landscape. None more so than at Ubirr, where standing atop a rocky outcrop you look across the Nadab floodplain and the East Alligator River toward Arnhem Land.

It felt special, mystical even. The only downside of our trip was that so much of the park was still closed after the recent floods. You could spend weeks here.

Darwin Museum: MAGNT (Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory) sits on the coastline to the east of the Darwin city centre. It’s a small museum on the global scale of things, but very much worth a visit.

The display devoted to the destruction of Darwin on Christmas eve 1974 when Cyclone Tracy struck is fascinating.

In another room you’ll find the disturbing early history of white settlement in the territory detailed.

There’s much more and it comes with the bonus of cooling air-con so you can visit during the day when so many outdoor activities are, at best, uncomfortable.

Before we left on this trip people were warning us we’d take too much stuff, and to pack lightly with that in mind. We thought we did, but guess what, we took too much stuff!

Darwin has given us both the chance to reassess and repack. As a result a bunch of soft bags full of long pants and jumpers have been stuffed into the back of the Tasman, hopefully not to be seen again for months until we’re in cooler climes much farther south.

It was pretty easy job for me to do a cull. Basically I’m living in shorts, tees and sandals at the moment. Apart from one collared shirt, everything else has gone. The dress code up here for blokes is not strict. More complicated for Jane, but she sorted it.

The end result is the release of a whole bunch of cupboard space in the 'van and that is hopefully going to make life that much easier. It’s a confined area so the less frigging about you have to do to get stuff the better.

After the car got a service last week it was the caravan’s turn for some tender loving care. Kane from NT Wheel Bearing Service paid us a visit at Marrara Gardens to do a full hub, wheel bearing and brake check.

Kane, an expatriate Victorian (there are quite a few up here) and Tigers tragic, did a thorough inspection and delivered a thumbs up on what he found, with only the tune of one of the electromagnetic drum brakes requiring a fiddle.

It was good news ahead of the next stage of our trip into more remote parts of the Australian north-west.

We’d always known that bringing the dogs would cramp our ability to see and do everything we wanted to.

Kakadu was on our bucket list and the solution came in the form of Lisa and Ian, a couple from suburban Darwin who Jane tracked down to mind Eddie and Lulu for two nights for us. They also had them overnight when we went to Litchfield.

Then Lisa and Ian’s daughter Gabby took them when we went to Mindil Beach Market and on another occasion a fellow resident of Marrara Gardens Caravan Park, Denise, looked after them while we visited the museum.

It was different and kinda liberating to have a little time away from the dogs, but we did miss them and were glad to have them back. They seem none the worse for the experience either.

Dogs back in our possession, it’s time to pack up and depart Darwin for Katherine and then turn west. The Indian Ocean is calling...

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